Setthorns

We have travelled south into the New Forest. We pitched up at the Setthorn Forest site, and the location - in amongst the trees - reminds us of our visit earlier in the year to Milford Sound in South Island NZ - this time without the sand flies. We hope to see deer roaming by our pitch. We have already met the free range cattle and ponies.
We spent our time walking in the forest which is what we intended to do on our visit.
Firstly we walked into Brockenhurst along the disused railway path and had a wander up towards Balmer Lawn. The weather was quite kind to us with some showery outbursts. Managed a final forage for brambles on our way back. Cattle and ponys aplenty but no deer to be seen.
On Monday A needed to visit his accountant in Southampton so K had a sewing day. It was a wet day, but we managed to walk to Sway where A got the train and K returned to Chloe. On the way back the guard advised that the train would stop at Brockenhurst for 40 mins to let some express trains through so I walked back from there.
On Tuesday we walked the 6 miles into Lymington to meet Graham and Vivien. We then travelled to Mudeford for a further walk along the sea shore path. We enjoyed a great lunch in The Noisy Lobster pub and watched a lady go swimming (although not for long) in front of us. The sun was out and the air very clear. G and V kindly dropped us off in Sway, so we walked back through the woods to our site. Another great day catching up with good friends.
The forecast had changed for Wednesday so we booked ourselves into the "Walk on the Wild Side" guided ramble across the Forest and joined 9 others and two volunteer rangers.
Overnight the rain came down heavily so the forest was very damp underfoot - we managed about 7-8 miles on predominantly accessible track, through thick woods and across heathland. At times we were wading through quite deep water, which was a challenge to those of us in walking boots as opposed to wellies.
Crossing Rhinefield Drive we had a brief glimpse of a stag deer as it rushed across the road into the woods. Sue and Caroline, our guides, were very keen to impart their knowledge of the relationship between the Agisters, Commoners and Verderers. All very interesting to hear. There was some very exotic fungi about too. Another great day out - after the initial morning rain died out the weather was very kind to us.Read more